Yogi spiced blackberry

One of my cats will headbutt me if I say “headbutt”, he’s like a pokemon or something. Hard enough that I can hear a thunk.

Two that I watched on Netflix a while back:

The Untold History of the United States - good overview of US history with an emphasis on conservatives fucking us over and liberals not really doing a whole lot about it

Winter on Fire - striking footage of the Maidan revolution in Ukraine prior to the invasion of Crimea

It’s been nearly 10 years since you needed to develop with C# on Windows.

New versions of .NET have been cross platform with a free IDE since 2016.

What helped for me was to just focus on consistency of activity first and foremost. Making sure I have a consistent 1hr a day fitness plan that I don’t hate, and use a fitness watch to look at streaks over time so you don’t want to break them. For me upper/lower splits every other day helped make sure I get enough core/legs in because I was always skipping leg day. I try to do the major compound movements and supplement with additional stuff if there is time… Pushups, pullups, squats, deadlifts. I’ve also been doing intervals on the exercise bike so 3 min of bike for every 7 minutes of lifting

I started to see results after a few months, but it’s only recently that I’ve started to pay more attention to what I’m eating. I think it’s good to get the consistent activity down first before you worry about cutting and calorie deficits. That way whatever you’re doing, mentally you know you can do it even if you feel more physically fatigued.

I also didn’t realize just how much protein I really needed, didn’t see much in the way of results until I started to eat around .8g protein per pound of body weight. Chicken, salmon, low-fat Greek yogurt, egg whites, and some protein bars/shakes… I found it wasn’t that hard to stay around 2000 calories and still eat 160+ g of protein.

I’m probably going to eventually get a fitness and nutrition coach because my health insurance will likely cover it, just to have additional confidence in what I’m doing.

Ah yes, my last company bought into that crap. They called it RPA for Robotic Process Automation and they also used it to access internal apps that we had full control of.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if they just used it to enter data into third party websites which had no APIs or integrations.

At one point we updated the title of an HTML page and we had to revert the change because the RPA team said it would be a three week turnaround to fix their script.

I noped out of there not long after, it was yet another “project management driven” company where managers and project managers were repeatedly duped by vendors and outsourcing firms instead of hiring and retaining developers.

I’m using this one and like it. Chairs in a similar price range from Staples just didn’t have all the right adjustments that this one has.

https://www.autonomous.ai/office-chairs/ergonomic-chair?utm_term=631224075317&utm_campaign=[P]_US_Search_Standard_Brand_Phrase&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_content=autonomous ergonomic chair&gad_source=1

I’m not planning on being able to have an IT job in my old age. Seems likely that ageism or economic factors will conspire to make sure I can’t. I’m planning on possibly involuntary retirement in my 50s.

Gens Y, X, Z, and soon A are being taught by conservatives that capitalism can’t be reformed, and therefore are digging capitalism’s grave with their own hands.

You want reasonable restrictions on firearms? Conservatives say that can’t be done because of the 2nd amendment. They’re basically teaching gens Z and A that the 2nd amendment needs to be eliminated and those generations might actually have the numbers to do it eventually.

It will be the same with capitalism. You want reasonable regulations and taxation to reign in the abuses of the rich and corporations? Conservatives say you can’t do that because the free market must be supreme.

Conservatives will dig the grave of capitalism by continuing to fight against any reforms that would make capitalism more livable for future generations.

I personally recommend that people (men especially) stay away from them.

I always struggled with confidence and self-esteem, so for me dating apps were just making that worse. I spent months swiping and the breakdown for me was something like 200 swipes before I’d get a match, then out of those matches, at least half were spam bots or fake profiles, then out of the other half, probably only 1/5 would answer my messages. The ones that did answer either weren’t very engaged or just never responded at all often the initial interaction. All of this just contributed to lower self esteem and more bitterness and depression.

I found the women on these apps would put in 0 effort at conversation, and yet would say things like “We should get to know each other first” when I tried to set up a date.

Then the dates that I did get, I felt catfished but more likely it was my own wishful thinking and being willing to overlook obviously misleading photos. I had at least one date with a girl who matched her picture but then was a complete psycho.

I don’t really blame the women, it’s just market forces at work. These apps tend to have way more guys on them than girls, so the women are (generally) able to just sit back and the men are expected to wow them with fantastic opening messages or have the exact right physical characteristics. For this reason, Bumble was the only app I had success with and would have recommended.

For me, I had hoped dating apps would be a useful tool for meeting other singles in person to get to know them, but I ended up with the impression that many women were just using them to inflate their own self esteem, and loved to chat and get compliments but never actually wanted to date.

Anyways, it sounds cliche and I’m sure someone has said this to you, but you should work on building yourself. What worked for me was to find an activity that I could be secure and confident in and also meet women in that setting. I found two different long-term relationships through coed rec sports, and it’s not like I was some superstar at sports impressing the women or anything. Just go into it thinking about improving your own mental and physical health, work on getting better and meeting more people.

Both women I met through coed sports told me that I was much more appealing in person than my dating profiles, so maybe some profile improvements were warranted, but I concluded that it’s just not possible to get a good sense of someone you might want to date through pictures and a chat. Dating apps are only useful if they lead to meeting people in person, so if they aren’t enabling you to do that then you just have to get out there and meet people without them.

I do like Al Jazeera for an alternate perspective from the Western media taking points, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them unbiased particularly when it comes to this conflict.

That being said, I highly recommend their documentary series Al Nakba which is a documentary series about the founding of Israel from the Palestinian perspective.

I’ve been a cord cutter for a long time and I enjoyed watching world news on Al Jazeera for a long time. While I definitely enjoyed their content as an alternative to the celebrity fluff filled US cable news, it’s definitely biased against Israel when it comes to this conflict. However, I would still recommend everyone watch Al Nakba which is streaming for free with no ads on their website. It’s a four episode documentary series about the founding of Israel with primary accounts of what happened in the ground there from Arabs, Israelis, and British officers.

It’s probably very biased and one-sided, but the rest of the media is very biased and one-sided in the other direction.

For example, Wikipedia says that the 1948 war was started by the Arabs once Israel declared a state. In Al Nakba, they challenge that narrative with first-hand accounts from Arabs and British officers who say that it was the Israelis who started the war through ethnic cleansing of Palestinian villages, in some cases before the British even left.

Mark the Shark and Rueben the Roomba

I’m at the same time horrified and fascinated by them. I saw a comment that accused NATO of causing he war to “drag on”. When I brought up that Russia could just leave, I got people unironically replying that Ukraine was the aggressor in the war and that it was Ukraine committing genocide and attacks on civilians. I understand that I could be trapped in a western bubble… but really? I didn’t bother asking for a source because I’m sure the only source for that misinformation is the Kremlin. What’s crazy is that you would think the Russian shills would be spread out trying to infect other communities with disinformation, instead they all flock to this echo chamber apparently, so it seems likely that they genuinely believe this stuff.

I loved my first gen Chromecast, but I can’t recommend the newer ones. I got the 4k model. Aside from the fact that it draws enough power I can’t plug it into the TV’s USB… it just isn’t capable of streaming 4k without frame skips. And no, it’s not my fiber internet, the router, or the streaming service. I have a Sony TV with Android TV and it streams 4k just fine. The Chromecast was unwatchable for me, probably downgrading to 1080p would fix it, but then I didn’t need to pay extra for the 4k model, and I could have just plugged the standard model into the TV.